Easy Bearnaise Recipe | Grilled Steak And Veggies! - KetoConnect (2024)

FAQs

What is a substitute for bearnaise sauce? ›

If you use mayonnaise instead, however, you don't have to worry about the egg and butter separating and can use just a regular saucepan. As NPR explains, tumeric colors the sauce so it looks like the real thing, and the mayo substitute tastes like a real béarnaise as well—just with less effort.

Béarnaise sauce is commonly paired with grilled fish or steak, but it's just as delicious on roasted vegetables or eggs Benedict. Spoon this silky, herby sauce over roasted asparagus, steamed broccoli, or grilled mushrooms for a sophisticated dinner party side.

Thickening Sauces With Egg Yolks

Egg yolks are another common sauce thickener. Sauces like Hollandaise, Bearnaise and mayonnaise are made this way. The basic technique is to beat the yolks until smooth, then slowly whisk in the liquid oil or butter.

What Is Béarnaise? Béarnaise is a fat-in-water emulsion—in this case, butter emulsified into a reduction of white wine and vinegar flavored with shallots, tarragon, and chervil, all bound and thickened with egg yolks. It's technically a derivative of hollandaise sauce, one of the five French mother sauces.

Béarnaise Sauce is considered by many to be one of the finest sauces to serve with steaks. A variation of Hollandaise sauce, one of the 5 “mother sauces” in classical French cookery, it's notoriously difficult to make by hand.

The difference is only in the flavoring: béarnaise uses shallot, black pepper, and tarragon, while hollandaise uses white pepper or a pinch of cayenne. The sauce's name derives from the province of Béarn, France. It is a traditional sauce for steak.

The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.

It's what happens next that sets them apart: Hollandaise gets its acidity from lemon juice (sometimes vinegar) and is usually seasoned with salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. Béarnaise, meanwhile, builds upon hollandaise with white wine vinegar, shallots, tarragon, and other fresh herbs.

To be clear, butter won't thicken up sauces quite like cornstarch or something similar would, but it's great for adding extra richness and glossy texture to pasta and pan sauces.

Mignonette describes the infusion—shallots, black pepper, and the licorice fragrance of tarragon in a bracing white vinegar, simmered slowly to extract the flavors. The infusion is one of the three components of a béarnaise. The other two are egg yolks and clarified butter.

What makes bearnaise sauce break? ›

A broken sauce is generally caused by the separation of sauces into two components: a watery liquid and an oily film on top. This happens when there's too much fat or liquid in the mixture. This can happen when there are not enough emulsifiers (which help keep your ingredients together).

(ˌbeɪəˈneɪz ) noun. (sometimes without capital) a rich sauce made from egg yolks, lemon juice or wine vinegar, butter, shallots, herbs, and seasoning.

Variations of Béarnaise Sauce

For grilled meat or fish, stir in tomato puree to create sauce Choron. Add demi-glace, and the sauce becomes sauce Foyot for serving with grilled fish or meat. For a lamb sauce, make sauce Paloise, by substituting mint for tarragon.

It's what happens next that sets them apart: Hollandaise gets its acidity from lemon juice (sometimes vinegar) and is usually seasoned with salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. Béarnaise, meanwhile, builds upon hollandaise with white wine vinegar, shallots, tarragon, and other fresh herbs.

Béarnaise sauce is an evolution of hollandaise, with added tarragon and shallots. MasterClass reports that hollandaise sauce consists of egg yolk "emulsified with unsalted butter and acid." On the other hand, Béarnaise sauce uses all the same ingredients and builds on them with added shallots and tarragon.

Béarnaise sauce has a rich, creamy, and tangy flavor with a slight herbal, licorice-like note from the tarragon. The sauce is known for its velvety texture and buttery taste, and it pairs well with a variety of dishes, including steak, fish, and vegetables.